I'm going to call Tarentino "QT" from now on.

This is an intense and beautiful middle-finger to Schindler's List. I just love the complexity and the pace of the way Ver Hoeven can tell a story.

One thing, on the disc I watched a lot subtitles flashed so briefly you couldn't read them. It happened frequently when important planning details were being explained. Was this on purpose? Or did I have yet another flawed Netflix disc. It seems like it was on purpose.

You explain exactly why this movie is so awful way more eloquently than I ever could.
My best friend at the time hated the Spiderman movies from the beginning...watching this one made me wish I had jumped off the bandwagon with him from the beginning. I don't think I'll ever watch any of these movies again.

Are you dudes selectively choosing to ignore the atrocity of acting that was Kirsten Dunst?

i like her susan sarandons

What do you mean?

It's a movie about the Holocaust without a moral compass, which is really the best and truest way to tell a story for my money. It's a much better way of depicting a time than having angelic sympathetic heroes and evil, heartless villians. Each character in this film is capable of excess and deviant actions as much as they're capable of good deeds.

In my mind, the two best storytelling directors working in the last 20 years are Spielberg and Ver Hoeven. I see this movie as Ver Hoeven saying "I can make a powerful, emotional, and moving picture about Gestapo-controlled Europe and I don't even need to cop out and tug at the audience's sympathies to do it." That's what I meant about the middle-finger comment.

Did that answer your question?

That sounds about right, even having not seen Death Proof yet. Not that any of those are compellingly bad compared to one another, they are all watchable.

You might also enjoy From Dusk 'Til Dawn, with QT's script and co-starring role directed by Robert Rodriguez.

QT also made a "special guest director" segment of Rodriguez' Sin City (the part where Clive Owen and Benicio Del Toro talk in the car--not to give too much away). It's not essential viewing, of course--just QT trying a hand at digital film under Rodriguez' urging.

Tarantino also wrote "True Romance," which is a great flick. He was also wrote the original screenplay for "Natural Born Killers" but, from what I understand, after Oliver Stone fucked with the project QT wanted to disassociate himself...so the credits say something like "Story By Quentin Tarantino."

And to exhaust this subject even further, here are some scenes from QT's directed ep of "E/R"

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Schindler's List didn't really take easy moral routes either. The 'hero' is a Nazi. Variorus Jews behave in less than admirable fashion. Historical record shows that the movie left out some of Schindler's most heroic exploits (literally putting himself in between various people and a nazi with a gun.).

After reading Rosenblum's review on it, he argues for it better than I ever could.



Rosenblum's Reader Review

Rosenbaum thinks every post Schindler's List film about this subject matter is better than Schindler's List. And most before as well.

For those who need more testosterone in their lives....



the Sergio Leone Anthology

My bro gave me Reservoir Dogs for xmas a few years ago but I've never watched it. Looks depressing, from the parts I've seen on tv.

Liked Kill Bill a lot, surprisingly. Have watched it a million times.

Kirsten Dunst is OK as an actress. Not everyone mumbles.

I'm in the Planet Terror camp--there are many lolz to be had. DP is skipable except for Kurt Russell's portrayal. The rest of it reminded me of an endless episode of "Mad About You."

I bring this up, having seen this on channel 9 this past weekend--not the DVD--but this is out there and I know some folks here would be intrigued. Yup, it is Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes playing "themselves" in 3 episodes of the sometimes controversial Canadian teen drama. Don't buy this expecting a full-on Jay & Silent Bob movie. What happens is Smith goes to the Canadian-based Degrassi Hifgh School in order to shoot his next Jay & Silent Bob film, and gets involved with some of the characters in the current narrative arc--quite significantly with one of the moms named Caitlin (Staci Misytsin[sp?], playing the same character she had in the original Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High series).

Smith actually pulls off the project quite well, even outshining his fellow actors. I must stress again that you can't expect this to be a full-on Smith project, because he is not the director or writer, and his story is only one of a couple plotlines--but the scenes involving him and the statutory-rape-line-treading Mewes are funny and engaging, and could have been ghostwritten or improvised by Smith/Mewes for all we know.

However, the DVD itself--which again, I haven't seen--trumpets behind-the-scenes interviews, deleted scenes and Smith/Mewes commentary, which is ALWAYS a treat for Smith fans. So move your way through the 3 episodes, and even if you don't like them, it would probably worth your while to enjoy the extras.

Oh man... you should watch that movie. Tarantino never really topped that one, not even with the enjoyable-yet-overrated Pulp Fiction.

A Follow-up to Hoop Dreams.

one-trick ponies

OMG



Based on the book, Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa (called The Ice Candy Man in India and Europe). About a Parsee family in Lahore, 1947, during Partition. Unbelievable soundtrack.

have you read the book? i have not but enjoyed the movie quite a bit.

The book is better and more disturbing, but the movie is excellent on its own.

Interestingly...

Deepa Mehta, the director, made this movie as an adaptation of the Sidhwa novel. She also made two other films about modern India: Fire and Water. THEN Sidhwa made a book adaptation of Water.

My troika was pursued by wolves.

I actually caught 'The Devil and Daniel Johnston' on cable last night. It's a documentary about bizarre-o, erstwhile mental-home-resident-cum-musician Daniel Johnston. What's unusual is the length to which he and his family went to document his life, tumult and all. Though I've never really 'gotten' his music, it's a pretty poignant film that handles his mental illness in a straightforward, non-pandering way.

Also, for you musicheads, there's some funny sequences involving the members of Sonic Youth, who had the not-so-bright-idea of inviting Daniel to stay with them in NYC (he proceeded to drop his meds and go batshit insane on them). In one part, Thurston and Steve are riding around NYC to find Daniel, who has fled. They end up locating him in New Jersey, only to have Daniel go on another diatribe about how the entire world was conspiring against him and doing the devil's bidding.

Great doc.

I loathed this film.

2 movies during which I completely fell asleep while watching:



Both films seemed pretty entertaining, but I was just waaaaaay too tired to stay focused. Guess I'll have to watch 'em again in the future.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

What a ride! A back-and-forth foreboding narrative where even the slightest of details play out and every character at one point (or two or three times) just loses their shit. Seymour Hoffman's apartment trashing scene was classic even though it brought about a case of the giggles, because he was moving so slothlike.


Edit: Marisa Tomei shows her boobs a lot.

SOLD!!

Quite good.

ditto

the bee movie
It's actually worse than you think it is


Planet Terror
I think I liked this one better than Death Proof. A fun popcorn flick.


No End In Sight
that was depressing
Slightly biased look at the war mongers that got us into this mess. Fuck Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice & Powell

k, i know this goes under tarantino does another movie but i don't care. that just seems hateful. lifetime cool points to qt for use of the vanishing point car in deathproof.

Reviews I read on Meet The Robinsons said that the movie was nothing without the 3-D effects. Oh Disney, please reinstate your ink/paper/cel animation department, for all that is good and mighty.

I thought Lasseter was reinstating it.

Really neat Thai western (pad thai western?). Great mix of 40s melodrama, westerns, and kung fu movies, with a modern twist. Kind of reminded me of El Mariachi.

Great visuals too, this is basically a still from the movie:

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

(including a slightly creepy performance by a young Michael Cera)

Agreed. I found this movie fascinating. Then again I've always been more drawn to non-fiction based works in general.

Reservoir Dogs is Tarantino's best movie. That shit is classic. It's not depressing at all. It also has some of the best dialogue ever captured on film. See "Mr. Pink".

Incredible.

Crazy talk.





That's the exact problem. Tarantino made it his own, while Rodriguez just played copy cat. Yeah, we get it. It's a grindhouse flick. That doesn't mean it's going to be good.






I thought the first half of DP was brilliant, but the second half fell apart. Still entertaining though.

Five villains if you count the producer and director.

Agreed about the stuntwoman. Man he fucked up that 2nd half. First half was excellent.

This is a damn good movie. George Clooney does surprisingly well behind the camera.

Knocked Up: Funny, good. Not brilliant or fantastic or anything. But definitely some funny stuff, bonus content on the DVD is almost as good as the movie.

Monty Python's The Life of Brian: Very disappointing, it's to the other Python movies as For Your Consideration is to the other Christopher Guest movies. The only real laughs come out of a familiarity with the style.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age: Pretty great story, told with some major directorial flaws. Most of my complaints revolve around the overdramatized camera shots, peeking through little holes in the castle, or floating up above the actors etc. A couple of things felt completely overdone and hardly relative. Mostly Geoffrey Rush's plot line. Depite all the complaints though, it's still pretty enjoyable, recommended for any one who likes historical period piece stuff.


Halfway through The Natural: Not my favorite Redford movie (been watching a lot of these lately), but it's decent. Kind of more about the mystery/noir feeling than baseball.

You are mental.

Alright, the Stoning scene was good, and Eric Idle had a few funny bits here and there, and the People's Front stuff was fun etc.

It just felt weak compared to Holy Grail and Meaning of Life. Actually compared to most other things, it was fairly brilliant.

Are you saying this one isn't your third favorite Python movie?

It's better than Meaning of Life by a country mile and I think 95% of the people on the board will agree with that. I'd put it above Grail some days and just below on others.

Many people consider it the finest comedy ever made.

The political satire of "The Judean People's Front", "The People's Front of Judea", and "The Popular Front of Judea"., Biggus Dickus, Romani ite domum. Never mind all the religious satire.

Grail is best for the all-out laughs. Brian is best for the religion pokes. Meaning Of Life is a brilliant Luis Bunuel movie, I think, masquerading as a Python film.

I won't argue with just about everything you said because, like I said upthread, theres PT people and there's DP people, and for whatever reason the two just don't mix. What I will take issue with is your statement that "Tarantino made it his own, while Rodriguez just played copy cat."

Of the two directors, I've come to much prefer Rodiriguez because he really is an auteur (in addition to simply putting out more good films than QT). Not only does he write and direct, he has a hand in editing, special effects, camera work. Hell, he even wrote the score for PT. While PT may be derivative of the grind genre, it certainly has Rodriguez's stamp all over it.

Quentin on the other hand is a copy machine for everything but dialogue (his one true talent). Too often he simply "borrows" from other films. Even the car and the car chase in DP are from Vanishing Point and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry. Your favorite QT flick, Reservoir Dogs, is a remake of City on Fire. Now granted, RD is better because of QT's knack for dialogue, but he ain't the great director that many of us thought he would be.